U.S Box Office Report - 29th - 31st July 2005

1. The Wedding Crashers - $20.4M - $116M
2. Charlie & The Choc Factory - $16M - $148M
3. Sky High - $14M - $14M
4. Stealth - $13.5M - $13.5M
5. Must Love Dogs - $13M - $13M
6. Fantastic Four - $6M - $136M
7. The Island - $5.6M - $23M
8. War of the Worlds - $5.4M - $218M
9. Bad News Bears - $5.4M - $22M
10. March of the Penguins - $4.1M - $16M

In a historic move, a movie that's already been open two weeks, takes the top spot in its third. The Wedding Crashers, made for $40M has unseated the two-week champion, Charlie & Choc Factory.

Elsewhere, the Kurt Russel Superhero comedy took the third spot that many thought Stealth would take (truth be known, execs had hoped that Stealth would open at no1). Scoring well with kids & parents, Sky High has already made back almost half its budget. The same can't be said of the $100M budgeted Stealth. Perhaps it was the high concept/no plot/poor trailer that put people off? Or perhaps it was just crap.

The Cusack/Lane comedy took a comfortable no5 and may actually take the fourth spot once final numbers are in on Monday afternoon. The alternate programming to broad comedy Wedding Crashers and kids movies Sky High & Charlie, Must Love Dogs tapped into the female-evening-out vein. Like Sky High, the movie has made back almost half of its budget.

The Island dropped further still and will almost certainly vanish from the top ten next week. Expect it on DVD by October. Almost no one can figure out why the movie failed so badly but many (including Bay) are pointing toward a very confusing promotional plan with Bay himself saying the posters made Scarlet Johannson look like a porn star (surely a sure fire way of getting bums on seats though?).

The other casualty from last week was the Bad News Bears, it continues its slide out the top ten along with The Island. War of the World & Fantastic Four continue to add to their totals while the The Devil's Rejects, a minor success from last weekend, dropped out of the top ten but has taken $5M more than its overall budget.

Finally, the bawdy, obscene comedy, The Aristrocrats, opened on just four screens and made a total of $260,000 from those said screens. Let's not forget this is a documentary that has been released without rating, so its really limiting it's exposure. This week marked the lowest box office top ten take since the May 13-15 weekend.

Next week will see only one movie opening wide, The Dukes of Hazard. With the top two movies being a month old by then, Dukes should have no problem snagging the top spot. Adding a further 1500 screens to its run, March of the Penguins continues its sleeper assault on the box office.

Of note for next week is Bill Murray's follow up to Lost in Translation, Broken Flowers, opening initially in a very limited number of cinemas.